Direct-Write Printing of Meshed Patch Antenna on Textile 1 Hasan Shahariar, PhD Candidate 2 Raj Bhakta, PhD Student 3 Dr. Jesse Jur, PI Fiber & Polymer Science, Electrical Engineering Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry & Science North Carolina State University NEXT Research Group 1
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Outline Motivation & Background Material Selection & characterization Process selection & optimization Modeling & fabrication of meshed patch antenna Antenna characterization Conclusion 3
Motivations 4
Reconfigurable Antennas For Wireless communication Challenges For Smart Sensor Application Transceiver Transmitter Material Selection, characterization & optimization Physical change Sensor Materials Receiver Engineering device design for printed antenna application Characterization of the antenna response with stimuli 5
Current Challenges 1 Conductive Fabric 2 Conductive Ink Printing Pros Comfort Breathability Cons High cost as production scale increases Difficulty of integration with hard electronics Pros Low-cost, highly scalable Ease of integration of hard electronics Cons New technology = reliability issues 6
Material Selection & Characterization 7
Material Selection Evolon Polyurethane film Dielectric Laminate web Durable, Light, Superabsorbent Breathable High strength Adhesive for lamination, Good strength, Air permeable Thick but flexible Low loss material Better handling 8
Material Characterization Dielectric Constant Cavity resonator method 1.7 0.0084 Dielectric Losstangent Resistance (Ω) 600 500 400 300 200 100 0-100 -200-300 R (dielectric) X (dielectric) R (empty) X (empty ) -400 1.90E+09 2.40E+09 2.90E+09 Frequency 9
Fabrication : Approach 1 DuPont (5064H) Solid: 62-66 (%) Viscosity: 10-20 (Pa S) Resistivity: < 6 mω/sq/25micron Curing:120 C for 15 mins 10
Work Cycle 1. Calculating the physical parameters from the mathematical model using MATLAB 2. Selecting materials and characterizing the properties 3. Feeding the physical parameters and materials characteristics into HFSS simulation environment for creating Microstrip Patch antenna in HFSS environment 4. Adjusting the parameters and test it for desired frequency at simulation environment 5. Fabricate the antenna accordingly in the lab 6. RF characterization of the antenna 11
Antenna Measurement Gen-1 (Packaging & Design ) Gen-2 (Novel Air-Permeable Design) ISM Band ISM Band Novel design is required to impart the flexibility and air-permeability Shahariar, H., Soewardiman, H. and Jur, J.S., 2017, March. Fabrication and packaging of flexible and breathable patch antennas on textiles. In SoutheastCon, 2017 (pp. 1-5). IEEE. 12
Can we fabricate a custom designed patch antenna using 3D printer? 13
Additive Manufacturing Direct-write Printing 3D Printing Knowlton, S., Onal, S., Yu, C.H., Zhao, J.J. and Tasoglu, S., 2015. Bioprinting for cancer research. Trends in biotechnology, 33(9), pp.504-513. 14
State of the Art Throughput is a huge limitation! No work is out that shows process optimization and correlation with resolution Dispense Speed 15 mm/s Ahmed, Z., Torah, R. and Tudor, J., 2015, April. Optimisation of a novel direct-write dispenser printer technique for improving printed smart fabric device performance. In Design, Test, Integration and Packaging of MEMS/MOEMS (DTIP), 2015 Symposium on (pp. 1-5). IEEE. Björninen, T., Virkki, J., Sydänheimo, L. and Ukkonen, L., 2015, July. Possibilities of 3D direct write dispensing for textile UHF RFID tag manufacturing. In Antennas and Propagation & USNC/URSI National Radio Science Meeting, 2015 IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 1316-1317). IEEE. 15
Processing Solution Our Approach Our Approach Continuous mode 5mm/sec Drop-on-demand mode 50mm/sec 16
Benchmarking Throughput 17
Meshed Antenna Fabrication 18
Meshed Antenna Characterization Gen-3 (Meshed Patch Antenna Design) Narrow Bandwidth ~ 100 MHz The matching of the antenna can be controlled by changing fluid pressure (line width) 19
Antenna under Bending C-1 C-2 Bending in length direction Bending in width direction R1 R2 C-3 R3 Antennas are flexible and robust for practical utilization 20
Gain and Radiation Pattern Increasing the thickness of low-loss dielectric from 0.5mm to 0.79 mm improve the bandwidth of the antenna Wide Bandwidth ~ 900 MHz Co-polarized Radiation Pattern 1 db Gain at 2.42 GHz 21
Summary Identified suitable dielectric and packaging materials Redefined and optimized direct write process on textile Modeled and fabricated meshed patch antenna on textile Exhibited the robustness of the fabrication process and RF characteristics of the antenna 22
Future Direction 23
Thank You! 24
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